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Cypher

Cypher is a shroud of nature’s codes.  The patterns born from millions of years of DNA coding, celebrated by both the outside and the rarely seen inside of the armadillos armor, are wrapped together with human language and literature.

Tallow

Tallow is a series of surface explorations informed by periodic and gradual erosion.

Verticality blends into a range of plateaus, suggesting playful functions and relationships.

Isthmus

A narrow sliver of land with bodies of water on either side, an isthmus is a slender formation that tethers one frontier to another.

A passage, or connective tissue, that joins two otherwise separated masses is the language of the Isthmus series.

Heretofore

The Heretofore edition brings the notion of a trough of light together with a hand-chiseled texture in sculptural bronze.  Heretofore, of course meaning "until now," is an abstract concept about the reality that "now" is a constantly moving marker.  At what moment does something transition from "until now" to "now"?  The until-now moments that are ahead of us are contemplative as well.  Heretofore is about holding light rather than directing it, merging sensitive texture and white patination into somewhat industrial troughs.

Promontory

Promontory is about the power and intricacy of armor in its many forms, from an unyielding ridge of limestone that has withstood erosive forces, to the armor of warriors throughout history, to the rugged creatures that dominate the arid landscape of the American West.

Shaped by evolution and developed over millennia, the shells and shields protect precious, fragile sources of life, creating tension, mystery, and delight when internal mysteries are revealed.

Sloop

Sloop is a fleet of candle holding vessels in which fluid silhouettes compel the eye to travel, and candlelight skims the crests of sculptural texture.

Inspired by ancient ceremonies, Sloop reminds us of floating tributes to transcending, fallen warriors.

Tributary

The Tributary motif is about headwaters and braided streams and also about the nature of tribute, the channeling of materials and processes into something contributory.

The works are anchoring, monumental, and express movement between elements both navigable and rough, high plateaus and shallow estuaries.

Holotype

The Holotype Chairs were first shared at Alcova, during Salone de Mobile in Milan Summer of 2022 during Refractory’s multi-sensory installation titled Holotype .  The pieces are an exploration in solid wood, pulling from Refractory’s interest in expressing works by virtue of substantial volumes and planes in contrast with subtle and sculpted transitions.  These volumes are in lieu of linear members and limbs, combined with exposed hardware, and punctuated with cast bronze pulls.

The bronze elements are cast from a woven arrangement of porcupine quills.  The series is named in homage to our first international exhibit, as well as our first foray into solid wood chairs.

Loma

The Loma series interprets the mountains in our memory and the subconscious longing for vertical landscape that grows under the surface when absent from our daily experience. Loma activates the underside and interior faces of functional objects with vertically textured profiles that in turn shape the open space underneath. The cast bronze forms encourage traveling contact and continuous discovery as well as serving as a canvas to explore time-evolving patinations.

Furniture

Lighting

Objects

Promontory

Promontory is about the power and intricacy of armor in its many forms, from an unyielding ridge of limestone that has withstood erosive forces, to the armor of warriors throughout history, to the rugged creatures that dominate the arid landscape of the American West.

Shaped by evolution and developed over millennia, the shells and shields protect precious, fragile sources of life, creating tension, mystery, and delight when internal mysteries are revealed.

Revere the meaning of things.

Workshop

In reflecting on Refractory's sister company West Supply, founder Angie West says, “Our story is still unfolding.  West Supply's leaders and artisans are the foundation and the reason for Refractory’s emergence and expression, where craft can most intimately inform design as much as design steers, or asks of, the making.  

The unparalleled and powerful combination of talent here calls for a new and fearless chapter.  The relationship between Refractory and WS lies at the heart of our broader mission: to exemplify to the best of our ability and to support a more robust and fertile chapter in American craft and artisanship, as well as to participate more vigorously in art and civic-scale fabrication and manufacturing in Chicago and the Midwest.” 

 

 

Artist feature: Sarah Wilson

Sarah Wilson is an Austin-based cinematographer and photographer, working with magazines such as The New York Times Magazine, Time, The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, Mother Jones, and others.

The artist behind the installation of artisan portraits in the stairwell at Refractory's sister company, West Supply, Wilson's current public art series ESSENTIALS is the definition of inspired:  Portraits of Austin’s Essential Women Workers, a community-facing, interactive public art project honoring front-line women workers, portraits printed up to 20 feet tall are wheat-pasted on buildings throughout Austin. 

Click here to learn more about her incredibly important work. 

 

 

Hue and hand

To learn to truly see and to contextualize our work within the natural world is one of the many gifts of creativity.  A color or hue with a relationship to a mineral or other essence of terrain can convey an emotional and fundamental bond with a viewer.

Time, honored.

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